


Enigma

by feverfooted



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, SnowBaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:04:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7919839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverfooted/pseuds/feverfooted





	Enigma

Baz was crying. 

He sat on his bed, facing away from the door. Shoulders hunched, tremors shaking him. 

He didn’t seem to notice when Simon entered. 

Simon paused, one foot over the threshold, frozen in shock. He simply couldn’t comprehend it—Baz? Crying? It was completely unheard of. Yet there he was, truly and audibly sobbing.   
Simon felt an unnamable pang tug at his heart. 

“Baz?” he said quietly. He unfroze, taking another step into the room, approaching his roommate as if approaching a skittish animal. 

Simon saw Baz tense up. Saw him scrub his hands across his cheeks, probably trying to wipe away the tears. 

“What do you want, Snow?” he said, his voice void of it’s usual hostility. Instead he just sounded…tired. Toneless. Empty. 

“Are you okay?” said Simon. He took another step and sat down on his own bed. He was close enough to touch Baz, if the need arose. 

Baz turned and it was all Simon could do not to let his mouth fall open in shock. Baz’s eyes were bloodshot and puffy, tears still streaking his skin. Simon tried to ignore the feeling that had overtaken him—the feeling like something inside him was breaking. 

“No, I’m not okay,” said Baz with a laugh that sounded more like a gasp. “But it doesn’t matter.”

Simon inched ever-so closer, trying his hardest to understand. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t. He couldn’t understand this. Baz, with tears on his cheeks, defeat in his voice. Because Baz was a lot of things, but Simon had never thought of him as someone who cried. Not because he couldn’t but because crying was something he associated with feeling. 

He realized he had never really considered that Baz could feel anything other than scorn or disdain.   
In that moment, Simon realized how gloriously idiotic that notion had been. 

“It does matter,” insisted Simon. Hesitantly, he reached forward and brushed a tear from Baz’s cheek. Baz, strangely enough, didn’t shove him away. Instead his eyelids fluttered shut and he let out a sigh—one that sounded a bit like relief. 

“And why would you care?” said Baz. For once, the question was not mean-spirited. Simply…honest. 

Simon, feeling a bit more courageous now, brushed the hair from Baz’s face. It was tangled but soft—so soft. Just as soft as Simon had always thought it would be. 

Baz’s eyes flickered open, regarding him. Up close, Simon could see the different shades of gray melding and mixing, forming a pattern he wished he could dive into. 

“I’m your roommate,” said Simon, but this wasn’t an answer, it was simply a placeholder. Simon wanted to buy time, wanted to keep touching Baz’s hair. Because now he was here, this close. And now that Baz was letting him, Simon couldn’t seem to stop.

“We’ve always been roommates and you’ve never cared before,” said Baz. Simon imagined that the gray of his eyes was swallowing him up. 

Simon shook his head gently, fingers still nestled in Baz’s dark hair. “You’re a puzzle,” he said. “A puzzle I can never seem to solve, no matter how hard I try.”

Baz smiled, ever so slightly. There was pain there, indescribable pain, but something else, too. Something a bit like hope. 

“If I’m a puzzle you’re most surely an enigma,” he whispered. 

And when Baz kissed him, Simon realized that some puzzles didn’t have solutions. Sometimes there wasn’t an algorithm or a theory or a clever answer. Sometimes there was just this—a boy kissing him, a boy that tasted like tears and something like hope. 

And this was a solution far better than any he could have dreamt of.


End file.
